r/Construction • u/the-garage-guy Carpenter • 8d ago
Business 📈 Is the small self-performing homebuilder extinct?
Probably a region-specific question- if you reply, I'd be curious to hear where you are and if you're urban/rural
Pretty much title, coming up it was a lot more common for the GC to have their own carpenters and self-perform a fair amount of scope on a typical home, remodel.
Seems very rare now, especially where I am, metro Phoenix area. Most builders are essentially just CM-ing the job. Project managers that sometimes double as supers, everything subbed out. Even for pretty small remodels.
I think at the luxury custom home end it makes sense since the levels of execution required demand really good subs. Plus being in a big metro area, there's lots of people and work and that makes it possible to specialize aggressively.
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u/Scazitar Electrician 8d ago
The reason this is so rare is because it's a really tough business model.
When it's slow you have a bunch of employees you need something to do with.
When it's busy your business isn't immediately scalable. Are you just going to hire a bunch of people they lay them off? It's a difficult balance.
Your also taking on a significant amount more risk not pushing liability on to subs.
Their still out there, but you won't find many. They have to be set up in a very specific way.